


Animal Control

by Brumeier



Series: After the Eclipse [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Community: ushobwri, Gen, Shapeshifting, Small Towns, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 03:56:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12449172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brumeier/pseuds/Brumeier
Summary: Skeeter thought he was hunting a wolf. He was. And he wasn't.





	Animal Control

**Author's Note:**

> For Monster Fest: Shape Shifters day at [You Should Be Writing](https://ushobwri.dreamwidth.org/171390.html)

The call came in the middle of the night, wrenching Skeeter out of a dream of being eaten by a snake, only to find himself face-to-face with one. 

"Ya'll need to stay in your terrarium, sweetheart."

Skeeter scooped the python up and gently put her back in her tank before he answered the phone.

"You got Skeeter."

_Yeah, this is Eddie Morris on Maple. I got some kind of wild dog in my yard and it chased our cat up the tree. The girls are all in a state. LeAnn! Put down that slingshot!_

"Be right over," Skeeter said. "Keep them girls of yours inside."

_Easier said than done_ , Eddie replied before he hung up.

Skeeter pulled on his least dirty pair of jeans and an old t-shirt that was so faded the words on it were illegible; he didn't remember what they used to spell out.

That was the easy part. Getting out to his truck proved more problematic because now the other animals were awake and thinking it was time for breakfast.

"All ya'll settle down," he said sternly. "It ain't feedin' time yet. I got a job."

He grabbed his keys, but only one shoe because Gerrold the pot belly pig ran off with the other one. A chase ensued, involving no fewer than five dogs, two cats and a chicken. But finally he was able to retrieve his shoe and get on out to his truck. The bigger animals in the outside pens watched him but didn't raise a fuss.

It was normally a ten minute drive from Skeeter's trailer to town, but given the late hour he kept his foot pressed to the accelerator and did it in six.

Several of the houses on Maple were all lit up, and there was a group of people out front of the Morris house, wearing bathrobes and pajamas. Old Man had a wooden bat resting up on his shoulder.

"You made good time," Vera Engle said. Her hair was all done up in rollers. "Dog's gone, though."

Eddie came out of his house, all four girls trailing after him in their nightgowns. LeAnn, the littlest, had a slingshot in one hand and Cissy, the oldest, was wielding a tennis racquet. 

"Dog took off, Skeeter. Sorry for hauling you out of bed."

"S'ok. Anyone get a good look at it?"

"Big," Old Man said. His eyelids were so wrinkled Skeeter didn't know how he was able to keep them open. 

"Rottweiler big? Or Great Dane big?"

"It was a wolf," Cissy said. "I got a good look."

"Ain't no wolves ‘round here," Skeeter said. "Leastways, none that I know of."

A wolf would be cool. Skeeter'd never seen one up close. Bears and cougars and wild boars, but never a wolf.

"Lot of things around here lately that shouldn't be," Vera said. "I'm going back to bed."

“Thanks for coming out, Skeeter,” Eddie said.

“No problem. If ya’ll don’t mind, I believe I’ll just poke around your yard. See if it left any prints.”

“Knock yourself out.” Eddie herded his girls back in the house and turned out the porch light.

Everyone else wandered back to their homes, too, and lights flickered off up and down the street. Skeeter popped open the tool box in the back of his truck and took out a high-powered flashlight and a tranq gun, which he loaded just in case.

Eddie had a nice yard: the lawn was trimmed, the bushes not overgrown, and there weren’t a bunch of toys scattered around. Nice, but not the best for looking at animal tracks. But Skeeter got lucky, because the wild dog they saw had crossed over the paving-stone patio, leaving wet paw prints behind. 

“I’ll be dipped.” Skeeter gave a low whistle.

The tracks definitely belonged to a wolf. He may never have met one, but he knew from tracks, and these were definitely not made by a dog. The hind food and forefoot tracks overlapped, and the trail didn’t wander or weave.

Skeeter shone his flashlight into the yard next door, but there was no sign of the wolf. No matter. He could track an animal better than anyone. He’d find it. Eventually.

*o*o*o*

Mabel’s Kitchen was full up with the morning crowd, but Skeeter found one lone seat left at the counter between Sheriff Ramly and Doc Scoggins and slid onto it.

“Coffee, Ida,” he said as soon as the waitress looked his way. “And some hash with toast.”

“Heard you got a call last night,” Sheriff Ramly said. He was nursing his own cup of coffee and half a bearclaw. “You find anything?”

“Just some tracks. Looks to be a wolf.”

“Aren’t any wolves round here,” Doc Scoggins said. He peered at Skeeter over top of his glasses. “You sure?”

Skeeter shrugged. “Sure as I can be. Tracks tell a tale, though.”

“Maybe we should put a call into the county,” Sheriff Ramly suggested.

“Ain’t no need to call Howard down here. I can handle one wolf.”

“Well, at least get on the horn with Walt. He might know if there’s a rogue wolf in the area.”

“Could be it escaped from a zoo or something,” Ida said as she set Skeeter’s coffee on the counter. “Didn’t they just have a fair or something up in Davis?”

“Suppose anything’s possible,” Sheriff Ramly allowed. “Probably would’ve been in the news, though. Escaped animal like that.”

Doc Scoggins gestured with his fork. “Could be more than one. Don’t wolves usually travel in a pack?”

“Morris girls only saw one,” Skeeter said.

“Just sayin’, you’ll want to be careful. If it’s come into the village it might be rabid.”

Skeeter really hoped it wasn’t rabid. He hated having to put an animal down. More often than not he rehabilitated the ones he got called in to remove, and the ones he couldn’t he just kept himself. Howard, the county Animal Control officer, was always threatening to turn Skeeter in. 

Ida returned with his plate of hash and toast, and Skeeter made quick work of it. He had a couple live traps to set up – for a skunk and a raccoon respectively – and then he was getting back on the trail of that wolf.

“Give a call if you need some backup,” Sheriff Ramly said. 

“Sure will.” Skeeter paid his bill with Ida and set some tip money on the counter. “All ya’ll have a nice day.”

*o*o*o*

_That wolf ate Mr. Peterson!_ the voice on the other end of the phone wailed.

Skeeter rubbed a hand over his face. That wolf was screwing up his sleep cycle, only coming around at night. Bad enough having to get woke up at all, worse to have Nancy Peterson being hysterical in his ear. Skeeter never cared much for Mr. Peterson, but he was sorry all the same.

“Is the wolf still there?”

_No. I took a shot at it and it ran off. With the rest of Mr. Peterson!_

“I’ll be right there, Nancy. Try and calm yourself.”

Skeeter made his way through the animal gauntlet again as he headed for the door, but at the last second he paused. Maybe Sheriff Ramly was right. Maybe he needed some backup.

“You’re with me, Buzz. Let’s go.”

The hound dog looked up, tongue lolling, and wagged his tail. He obediently followed Skeeter out to the truck and hopped right up on the seat. Buzz was part bloodhound, so it stood to reason he could follow the wolf’s scent trail.

Nancy Peterson lived just a couple streets up from Eddie Morris, and she was waiting outside for Skeeter with a twenty-two cradled in her arms and her face all red and puffy from crying.

“I’m real sorry about Mr. Peterson,” Skeeter said when he got out of the truck. He put Buzz on a leash and grabbed the flashlight and tranq gun.

“He didn’t deserve to go that way,” Nancy said tearfully. 

Frankly, Skeeter was surprised no-one had put buckshot in that dog before now. He was almost universally reviled in the village for his nasty disposition and propensity for peeing on people’s shoes.

Nancy showed him the scene of the murder. There was a fair amount of blood, which was excellent for tracking because the wolf had walked through it. Skeeter let Buzz sniff around the area before they followed the prints out of Nancy’s yard and down the street.

“We gotta find this wolf,” Skeeter said to Buzz. “Before it gets hungry enough to attack a person.”

Buzz seemed to take that to heart, because moments later he started to bray and he ran, pulling his leash right out of Skeeter’s hand.

“Aw, hell. Buzz! Heel, you idiot!”

Skeeter chased after his dog down the street, losing sight of him after he ran into Harper Park. It was just a little scrap of a park, with a teeter-totter and a slide for the kids, and a couple picnic tables. There were no lights and a lot of artsy shrubbery, so Skeeter had to turn on his flashlight.

“Ya’ll gotta be kiddin’ me.”

Buzz had found the wolf, all right. And the bloody remains of Mr. Peterson. But instead of growling and keeping his distance, Buzz was mounted up on the wolf like he was still a young pup who hadn’t been neutered more than six years ago.

“Buzz, you get down off there before you…”

Too late. They were tied. Skeeter plunked himself down on one of the picnic tables with a sigh. Nothing to do now but wait it out, and as soon as Buzz was free the wolf could be tranqed and moved.

“Worst backup ever,” Skeeter grumbled.

*o*o*o*

There was a cacophony of noise as soon as the sun was up, and Skeeter was so alarmed he almost fell out of bed. Dogs were barking, the big cat was screaming in that unnerving way it had, and there was a woman’s voice in the mix.

“Skeeter Dunlop, you get out here this minute!”

Turned out the angry female voice belonged to Dulcie Byers. She was sitting in the cage the unconscious wolf had been in just a few hours ago, trying hard to hide the fact that she was as naked as the day she’d been born. There was dried blood around her mouth, and Skeeter found the whole situation to be a bit surreal. 

“You let me out of this cage right now!” 

“Well, now, Miz Byers, I’m not sure that’s the best idea.”

“You kidnapped me! My husband is going to have the sheriff after you, mark my words!”

“Maybe so,” Skeeter said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “But yesterday I put a wolf in that cage and today you’re the only one in it. So I think maybe I better call Miz Everly first.”

It didn’t take Sally long to get there, once Skeeter explained the situation. In the meantime, he’d passed some clothes into the cage so Dulcie wouldn’t feel so exposed, and gave her a glass of water.

“Well, well,” Sally said when she arrived. “Isn’t this just the most interesting thing to happen to me on a Thursday?”

“Don’t you take that tone with me, Sally Everly,” Dulcie said. She still managed to sound uppity even though she was wearing a baggy pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt with a hand flipping the bird on it. “You get me out of here or I’ll have the sheriff take you in as an accessory to kidnapping.”

“Dulcie, you ate Mr. Peterson.”

“What? I most certainly did not! I…” Dulcie’s eyes widened and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

Sally shook her head. “It’s always the repressed ones. You been having weird dreams lately? Feeling tired when you wake up in the morning? Eating more red meat than normal?”

Dulcie nodded, hand still over her mouth.

“You better come with me. We have a lot to talk about.”

Sally nodded at Skeeter and he unlocked the cage. Dulcie crawled out, and when she stood up the sweatpants almost fell down. She hastily grabbed hold of them with one hand and stalked off towards Sally’s car.

“She gonna be okay?” Skeeter asked.

“That depends on her. There’s no cure for this sort of thing, but it’s manageable. She’ll just need to learn to control it.”

“She’s welcome to bunk in here, if she’s worried about hurting anyone.”

Sally smiled, and patted Skeeter on the arm. “You’re very nice to offer. I’ll let you know if we need your help.”

Skeeter watched them drive off. Buzz came over and nudged at his hand with his big furry head, and Skeeter scratched him behind the ears.

“I think it’s best we don’t mention your tryst with Miz Byers.”

Buzz chuffed out his agreement.

**Author's Note:**

>  **AN:** As soon as I knew I wanted to use this 'verse to tell a shape-shifting story, I knew my werewolf would have to be prim and proper Dulcie, with her pearls and haughty personality. I honestly wasn't planning on her having sexytimes with Buzz the dog, though. That just kind of happened. Bad dog!


End file.
